Ten Journalist Murder Cases to Solve

New York, April 29, 2010—In the Philippines, political clan members slaughter more than 30 news media workers and dump their bodies in mass graves. In Sri Lanka, a prominent editor who has criticized authorities is so sure of retaliation that he predicts his own murder. In Pakistan, a reporter who embarrassed the government is abducted and slain. In these and hundreds of other journalist killings worldwide, no one has been convicted.

To mark World Press Freedom Day, May 3, CPJ is spotlighting 10
emblematic cases in which journalists have been killed with impunity. CPJ is
challenging authorities to solve these 10 crimes and send a message that they
are committed to reversing the grave problem of impunity in journalist murders.

Ten murders. Not a single conviction.

Yet CPJ research shows that each of these 10 cases can be
solved. In many of the cases, specific suspects have been identified; in
others, evidence points clearly to potential culprits. In these 10 cases, as in
others that CPJ has documented over the past two decades, law enforcement
officials have failed to follow leads, interview witnesses, collect sufficient
evidence, or bring successful prosecutions.

“What they lack is political will,” said CPJ Executive
Director Joel Simon. “Solving these cases would start to change the culture of
impunity around the world, a condition that produces widespread self-censorship
and stifles the global dialogue.”

CPJ research shows that nearly 90 percent of journalist
murders worldwide go unpunished. The countries named on this list—the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Russia, and Iraq among them—have
the world’s worst law enforcement records when it comes to deadly violence
against the press.

To honor World Press Freedom Day, CPJ calls on authorities to signal an end to the era of impunity by bringing charges and winning convictions in these 10 cases. “These journalists fought injustice while they lived,” said Simon. “We
are left to continue their struggle now that they are gone.”

The 10 Cases to Solve

Cases were selected and ranked by CPJ staff based on their
expertise and the organization’s extensive research.

1. Maguindanao massacre victims, Philippines, 2009

In the deadliest event for the press in CPJ history, 30 journalists
and two support workers were slain in Maguindanao province
on November 23, 2009. The journalists were part of a convoy accompanying
supporters of a local politician filing candidacy papers for provincial
governor. Authorities say a rival political clan was behind the shocking ambush,
which took 57 lives in all. Nearly 200 people have been indicted, but it is far
from certain that justice will be served. CPJ and other organizations have
documented mishandling of evidence, intimidation of witnesses, and the
potential for undue political influence.

Key fact: Sixty-one
journalist murders in all have gone unsolved in the Philippines since 1992.

2. Anna
Politkovskaya, Russia, 2006

Anna Politkovskaya was
committed to documenting the brutalities of the Chechen separatist conflict—and
she was undeterred by threats or attacks. Politkovskaya was once detained by
Russian soldiers who tossed her into a pit. On another occasion, she survived a
poisoning. But her
enemies caught up with her on October 7, 2006, when an assailant shot her
in the elevator of her Moscow apartment building. The evidence led back to
Chechnya. A year after the crime, several suspects were arrested and justice
seemed possible. But the suspected Chechen gunman fled the country, and three
alleged accomplices were acquitted after a botched prosecution. Although a new
investigation is under way, no progress toward justice has been reported.

3. Lasantha Wickramatunga, Sri Lanka, 2009

Lasantha Wickramatunga predicted
his own murder in a piece he wrote shortly before
his death. “Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened, and killed,”
he wrote in the article, which was published three days after his killing. “It
has been my honor to belong to all those categories and now especially the
last.” Wickramatunga, editor-in-chief of The Sunday Leader, was a
prominent figure in Sri Lankan journalism, someone who challenged the government
many times in his 25-year career. As he was driving to work on a busy street outside
Colombo on January 8, 2009, eight men on motorcycles attacked him with wooden
poles and a metal bar. Authorities have not prosecuted anyone in the case.

Key fact: Nine
Sri Lankan journalists have been murdered since 2004. No prosecutions have been
brought in any of the cases.

4. Samir Qassir and Gebran Tueni, Lebanon, 2005

Lebanese journalists who dared to criticize
Syria were targeted in a series of bombings in 2005, the same year that former
prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri was assassinated. On June 2, 2005, a car bomb in
Beirut killed Samir
Qassir, one of Lebanon's most fearless journalists. For years, Qassir's
outspoken columns in the daily Al-Nahar
took on the Syrian government and its Lebanese allies. On December 12, Gebran Tueni,
Al-Nahar's managing director and a
harsh critic of Syrian policies, was killed by a bomb that targeted his armored
vehicle in east Beirut. Tueni’s murder came the same day that U.N. investigators
implicated Syrian and Lebanese intelligence in the al-Hariri assassination. A
subsequent U.N. inquiry into these politically motivated killings has yet to
produce tangible results.

Key fact: Lebanese
Broadcasting Corp. talk show host May Chidiac was seriously wounded in another car
bombing that year.

5. Armando Rodríguez, Mexico, 2008

In the border
town of Ciudad Juárez, reporters who cover the drug cartels put themselves
at grave risk. Days before he was murdered, ArmandoRodríguez had written an article accusing a local prosecutor’s nephew
of having links to drug traffickers. On November 13, 2008, Rodríguez was gunned
down while sitting in his car in the driveway of his home, his horrified eight-year-old
daughter watching from the back seat. A federal investigator assigned to the
case was murdered; a month later, so was his successor. The head of the office
in charge of investigating the murder then resigned and left the city. The
cartels had made their point: They decide what’s news in Juárez.

Key fact: Rodríguez
had told the state attorney general’s office that he was being threatened, but
no evident action was taken.

6. Soran Mama Hama, Iraq, 2008

Soran Mama Hama worked in the dangerous city of Kirkuk, but
it wasn’t sectarian strife that brought gunmen to his home on the night of July
21, 2008. It was old-fashioned
muckraking journalism. Mama Hama, a reporter for the Sulaymaniyah-based Livin magazine,
blew the lid off prostitution in Kirkuk. In what turned out to be his final
article, Mama Hama claimed that he had the names of "police brigadiers,
many lieutenants, colonels, and many police and security officers" who
were clients. Ahmed Mira, Livin's editor-in-chief, told CPJ
that the slaying was designed to "silence the free voices in Kirkuk."
Kirkuk Police Brig. Jamal Tahir assured CPJ that Mama Hama’s murder would get
"special attention," but no arrests have been reported.

Key fact: Livin editor Mira was himself the target
of a failed assassination plot.

7. Deyda Hydara, Gambia, 2004

Deyda Hydara, founder of the independent newspaper The
Point, often challenged President
Yahya Jammeh, particularly over the government’s harsh press policies.
When Jammeh once threatened to bury journalists "6 feet deep,” Hydara
condemned the president’s comments as "reprehensible." On the
night of December 16, 2004, as Hydara was driving home from his office in
Banjul, assailants in a passing taxi shot him in the head and chest. The murder
remains unsolved. In June 2009, during a televised appearance, Jammeh mocked
those who still ask who killed Hydara. “Let them go and ask Deyda Hydara who
killed him,” the president said.

Key fact: When
several journalists called Jammeh’s comments insensitive, authorities briefly
locked them up on “sedition” charges.

8. Hayatullah Khan, Pakistan, 2006

Hayatullah Khan embarrassed the government of President
Pervez Musharraf by providing some
of the first hard evidence that the United States was operating within
Pakistani borders. On December 4, 2005, he photographed the remnants of a
Hellfire missile that had killed a senior Al-Qaeda commander, Abu Hamza Rabia,
in Haisori in North Waziristan. Khan was abducted by five men in a white Toyota
pickup the next day and was not seen again for six months. On June 16, 2006, Khan's
emaciated, bullet-ridden body, still dressed in the clothes in which he was
abducted, was dumped in the town of Miran Shah. The slaying led to an uproar so
loud that Musharraf ordered Peshawar High Court Justice Mohammed Reza Khan to
carry out an investigation. Justice Khan sent his report to the government in
August 2006, but it has never been made public. No arrests have been made.

Key fact: The
findings oflocalgovernment investigations into the
killing have also been kept secret.

9. Elmar Huseynov, Azerbaijan, 2005

Elmar Huseynov, editor of the
opposition newsweekly Monitor in
Baku, had often faced government retaliation for his sharp criticism of
President Ilham Aliyev. On March 2, 2005, he was gunned down in the stairwell
of his apartment building in a killing that bore the marks of a contract hit. The
building's entrance light was broken and telephone lines in the neighborhood
were cut. Two years later, a former colleague named Eynulla Fatullayev
published an in-depth examination of the
unsolved killing, alleging that Huseynov’s murder was ordered by
high-ranking officials in Baku and carried out by a criminal group.

Key fact: After
his piece ran, Fatullayev was jailed on fabricated
charges and sentenced to more than eight years in prison.

10. Norbert Zongo, Burkina Faso, 1998

Zongo, editor
of the weekly L'Indépendant, was one of the most prominent
investigative journalists in the West African country. In 1998, Zongo was looking into allegations
that François Compaoré, brother and special advisor to President Blaise
Compaoré, had a role in a recent murder. On December 13, 1998, along a lonely
stretch of road south of Ouagadougou, gunmen shot Zongo, his brother, and two
companions. The case spurred journalists, politicians, and human rights
activists to push for a high-level investigation. In May 1999, an independent commission
of inquiry identified six "strong suspects" in the murder—but no one
has ever been prosecuted.

Key fact: An
indictment against a presidential guard regiment officer, the only charge ever brought
in the case, was dropped without explanation.

Through its Global Campaign Against Impunity,
CPJ is leading efforts to seek justice in journalist murders and improve the
overall press freedom climate. This month, CPJ convened an international
summit on the issue of impunity, which brought together leading advocates
at Columbia University. In conjunction with the summit, CPJ released its annual
Impunity
Index, a list of countries where journalist are killed regularly and
governments fail to solve the crimes.

CPJ’s work on impunity
is underwritten by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.